The outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5Nx viruses in winter 2016/2017 was the most severe HPAI epizootic ever reported in Germany. The H5N8 and H5N5 viruses detected in birds in Germany in 2016/2017 represent a reassortant swarm of at least five distinct genotypes, which carried closely related HA segments derived from clade 2.3.4.4b. The genotypes of these viruses and their spatio-temporal distribution indicated a unique situation with multiple independent entries of HPAIV into Germany.

March 17, 2017

Croatia has reported an outbreak of severe H5N5 bird flu among poultry in the north of the country, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said on Friday, citing a report from the Croatian agriculture ministry.

The virus was detected among poultry in farms and backyards in Spickovina in the Krapinsko-Zagorska region, the Paris-based OIE said.

All 65 birds exposed to the virus died or were culled, it said.

Croatia has already detected H5N8 avian influenza, another severe strain that has swept across Europe since last year, leading to widespread slaughtering of poultry.

Serbia and Slovenia today reported highly pathogenic H5N5 avian flu for the first time, both in wild birds, as several new developments with different strains played out in other countries. Events included more H5N6 outbreaks in Taiwan and more highly pathogenic H7N9 detections in live-poultry markets in China's Guangdong province.

H5N5 detections

Serbia's agriculture ministry confirmed H5N5 in a mute swan found dead on Jan 20 in a nature park near the city of Zrenjanin in the central part of the country, according to a report from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

Meanwhile, Slovenia also reported H5N1 in three mute swans found dead beginning on Jan 20 near three small villages on the Krka River in the southeast near the border with Croatia, according to a separate OIE notice.

January 25, 2017

After a spate of deaths from bird flu among patients in China, the World Health Organization has warned all countries to watch for outbreaks in poultry flocks and to promptly report any human cases.

Several strains of avian flu are spreading in Europe and Asia this winter, but the most worrisome at present is an H7N9 strain that has circulated in China every winter since 2013.

China has reported over 225 human cases since September, an unusually high number. The nation’s Lunar New Year vacation starts soon, and as it does, live poultry shipments increase, and holiday travelers often spread the flu.

The fatality rate is not yet known, because some victims are still hospitalized. But Dr. Margaret Chan, the health organization’s director general, said this week that China had had more than 1,000 cases in the last four years, of which 39 percent were fatal.

“All countries must detect and report human cases promptly,” she said. “We cannot afford to miss the early signals.”

The flu typically infects people who raise, sell, slaughter or cook poultry, but human-to-human transmission is suspected in two cases that worry health officials. Both were older men with a history of poultry contact. One apparently infected a daughter who cared for him, and the other his hospital roommate.

January 24, 2017

A bird flu outbreak in north Germany this week was of a new subtype called H5N5, the first time the strain has been confirmed on a German farm, the country's national animal disease center said on Tuesday.

The H5N5 strain was found on a turkey farm in Germany in Steinburg in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, the Friedrich Loeffler Institute said.

The H5N5 strain has been found previously in wild birds in the Netherlands, Italy, Montenegro and Italy and Croatia, the institute said. It has also been found in wild birds in Germany this week.

The institute is not changing its bird flu risk assessment, it said. There have been no recorded cases of H5N5 spreading to humans, it added.

The contagious H5N8 bird flu strain has been found in hundreds of wild birds in Germany in recent weeks and isolated outbreaks on farms have been occurring despite tougher hygiene rules and orders to keep poultry indoors in high-risk areas.

But German outbreaks are at a much lower level than in France, where a mass culling of around 800,000 ducks was undertaken after bird flu hit southwest France, the country's main foie gras producing region.

A series of European countries as well as Israel have found cases of H5N8 bird flu in the past few weeks and some ordered poultry flocks be kept indoors to prevent the disease spreading.

The discovery of a new strain of bird flu in Antarctic penguins has raised concerns the virus is reaching the frozen continent more often than previously thought, flown in by migratory birds.

Australian researchers helped uncover the new strain of avian influenza in the chinstrap penguin in 2015, finding striking similarities to a North American strain, which meant it had been introduced to Antarctica only recently.

The virus was first detected in Antarctica in 2013, but the discovery of the new strain has raised a red flag to the vulnerability of penguins to avian flu and its capacity to reach Antarctica.

“What the most recent finding shows is that viruses do get down there more often than we thought and it’s a red flag towards the future,” Hurt said on Tuesday.

“Our concern with that is that there have been viruses over the last couple of years that have been quite deadly to certain types of birds.”

Hurt said the unique strain of influenza found in 2013 was also detected the following year, which might mean it could survive underneath the ice during the winter, resurfacing in the summer months as migrating penguins returned.

Several migratory birds, including the Arctic tern and skua are thought to be the most likely culprits for delivering the viruses to Antarctica.

The birds can interact with poultry farms infected with avian influenza in North and South America before returning to Antarctica.

While the influenza hasn’t made the penguins ill, the fact that the viruses have arrived in Antarctica worries scientists.

“The impact of a pathogenic influenza virus, one that causes death or severe illness in birds, would have a really devastating impact,” Hurt said.

Understanding how avian influenza reached Antarctica helped provide more insight into how the virus moved around the world, he said.

To the Editor: Since the first detection of the influenza A(H5N1) virus in geese in China during 1996 (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/h5n1-virus.htm), H5 subtype viruses have continued to reassort and evolve, giving rise to multiple virus clades and gene constellations.

Recently, clade 2.3.4.4 viruses have shown a predilection for genetic reassortment, giving rise to H5N2, H5N5, H5N6, and H5N8 virus subtypes, and have become globally widespread, causing infections in wild birds or poultry elsewhere in Asia, and in Europe and North America (1–3).

The H5N6 subtype viruses have circulated in China since 2013 and have been mainly identified in ducks or chickens in the southern (Jiangxi, Guangdong) or western (Sichuan) areas (4,5). Two lineages of H5N6 viruses with distant genetic background were found among the H5N6 viruses isolated in China (5).

In China, there have been 3 cases of H5N6 virus infection among humans, causing 2 deaths. We recently reported the clinical characteristics and progression of a patient infected by the H5N6 virus in Guangzhou City, China, who was the second reported case-patient infected with this subtype (6). After having contact with poultry, he began to manifest an influenza-like illness on December 3, 2014, and progressed to a primary viral pneumonia.

The H5N6 virus A/Guangzhou/39715/2014 (GenBank accession nos. KP765785–KP765792) was isolated from a throat swab specimen collected on day 8 of his illness by inoculation into 9–11-day-old, specific pathogen-free embryonated chicken eggs. He recovered from his infection and was discharged from the hospital on day 58.

All internal genes were also closely related to A/chicken/Dongguan/2690/2013 (H5N6), ranging from 98.5% nucleotide identity for the polymerase acidic (PA) gene and 100.0% for the matrix (M) gene. The genome segments were also 98.2%–99.7% identical to A/duck/Guangdong/GD012014 and 98.3%–99.4% identical to A/chicken/Laos/LPQ001/2014, which caused outbreaks in domestic ducks and poultry, respectively, indicating that these viruses have the same genotype.